Comic for June 9, 2019: Relearning Control

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tony1695
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Comic for June 9, 2019: Relearning Control

#1 Post by tony1695 »

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We get some true confirmation that Raine's struggles with changing form is all down to a lack of being taught as a child.
And collars seem to... send nerve signals that the wearer can't interfere with?
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Re: Comic for June 9, 2019: Relearning Control

#2 Post by Shockwave07 »

Well we finally get an idea of what Rose is going for with the collar training... That was kinkier than I intended that to sound.

But still without understanding the basics of magic and how it feels it would be hard to understand control. It would be like someone explaining how a manual transmission truck works, but they have never felt what it's like to work a clutch pedal.

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Raine's Control and Self-Acceptance Issues

#3 Post by JDEzekude »

tony1695 wrote: Sun Jun 09, 2019 11:00 am We get some true confirmation that Raine's struggles with changing form is all down to a lack of being taught as a child...
I feel like there's more to it than that. Rose did mention earlier that Raine sees her "wolf side" as a split personality rather than a part of herself as a whole, just as Natani used to see her "feminine side".

This kind of self-denial has proven to be dangerous when Natani's mental link with Zen was temporarily cut off by Raine (using a magic shackle to prevent Zen from attacking Group B and/or getting killed by Group B). And now that Raine has willingly put on Rose's slave collar, I consider this befitting karma. This ought to make up for Keith's heartache and anxiety when Natani was temporarily comatose.

And, speaking of Raine, she may be far more loyal to her peers than her father Euchre, but she clearly lacks his self-acceptance. Yes, Euchre may be a self-serving coward but I think the one person he's always honest to is himself. Raine, on the other hand, is honest to practically everyone except herself, and that can only make her more vulnerable.

When Clovis finally comes knocking (and I've been dying to see him again for months), I have a feeling he won't hesitate to prey on everyone's weaknesses, including Raine after how she banished his henchman Carver...
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Re: Comic for June 9, 2019: Relearning Control

#4 Post by MuonNeutrino »

tony1695 wrote: Sun Jun 09, 2019 11:00 amAnd collars seem to... send nerve signals that the wearer can't interfere with?
It seems like - and that's strange, because that's not what they seemed to do previously. Before, they were portrayed as acting to break the wearer's mind and will so that they would *voluntarily* do what they were told, not merely puppeteering the wearer's body without direction from their mind. And yet, Raine's mind seems unaffected, and it's simply her arm moving on its own. This, I think, has to be significant in some way.

Are the collars at the legacy estate simply a different model? On the surface there doesn't seem any reason why that couldn't be the case, but on further reflection if that's the case it seems backwards. If there are different models of collar, the legacy estate ought to have the best, most sophisticated and effective type - and yet, the ones on Eric's ship are the subtle ones that warp the wearer's mind into perfect obedience, while the ones at the legacy estate are a crude brute force variety that merely puppets their bodies while not affecting their minds at all? It doesn't fit. Or, perhaps, does it have to do with Rose's line about how the collars only affect keidran - what does that mean for a hybrid? Right now, only Raine's arms and legs are keidran - is that why the collar can make her arm move, but because her body and head (and hence, brain?) are human it isn't affecting her mind?

Either way, I still think there's something a bit weird going on here. Rose should know what the collars do. We have seen no indication previously that it's possible to resist them - in fact, they've been presented as terrifying free-will destroying mind control devices. When all we had seen of this comic after Tom drew it last week was the art, before the dialog was added, I had been thinking that perhaps Eclipse was right in his comment from a couple comics ago -- that the point of the collar was not *actually* to help Raine with her ability, but to show Raine that the 'keidran-only' collar still affected her and therefore force her to confront her skewed mindset and admit that her wolf heritage really is part of her rather than being some sort of 'other'. But the dialog for this page goes in another direction, and one that honestly still doesn't make sense to me. Why does Rose think that Raine would be able to resist the collar? "Everyone has an agenda", eh Rose? What's yours, then?
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Re: Comic for June 9, 2019: Relearning Control

#5 Post by Warrl »

Or, perhaps, does it have to do with Rose's line about how the collars only affect keidran - what does that mean for a hybrid? Right now, only Raine's arms and legs are keidran - is that why the collar can make arm move, but because her body and head (and hence, brain?) are human it isn't affecting her mind?
That's more or less what I would go with - that and possibly the fact that Raine's baseline state is human.

(No, I don't consider Raine to be a hybrid at baseline - although obviously she is at the moment, due to magical transformation. Euchre was human, albeit via Perfect Transformation, when she was conceived, so she's human.)

These last few pages fit in well with recent events in the webcomic Freefall, and the resulting discussion. Robots (and AIs of a certain architecture in general, apparently - which is a good thing for the strip's main character: she's an AI of that architecture but not a robot) are subject to Direct Orders, which are somewhere between extremely difficult and impossible for them to deliberately disobey (although they can creatively circumvent). They've recently been declared to be people. So what Direct Orders to give them, and under what system, to allow them to freely function as people?

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Re: Comic for June 9, 2019: Relearning Control

#6 Post by aitaituo »

MuonNeutrino wrote: Sun Jun 09, 2019 7:19 pm
tony1695 wrote: Sun Jun 09, 2019 11:00 amAnd collars seem to... send nerve signals that the wearer can't interfere with?
It seems like - and that's strange, because that's not what they seemed to do previously. Before, they were portrayed as acting to break the wearer's mind and will so that they would *voluntarily* do what they were told, not merely puppeteering the wearer's body without direction from their mind. And yet, Raine's mind seems unaffected, and it's simply her arm moving on its own. This, I think, has to be significant in some way.

Either way, I still think there's something a bit weird going on here. Rose should know what the collars do. We have seen no indication previously that it's possible to resist them...
It could be as simple as the collars only work on keidran, so it's only working on the keidran parts of her body. There are complicated reasons in the real world why that wouldn't work on an arm, but I digress.

Rose doesn't seem to be telling Raine to overcome the collar's control. "You don't even know what to feel for."

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Re: Comic for June 9, 2019: Relearning Control

#7 Post by steelabjur »

MuonNeutrino wrote: Sun Jun 09, 2019 7:19 pm
tony1695 wrote: Sun Jun 09, 2019 11:00 amAnd collars seem to... send nerve signals that the wearer can't interfere with?
It seems like - and that's strange, because that's not what they seemed to do previously. Before, they were portrayed as acting to break the wearer's mind and will so that they would *voluntarily* do what they were told, not merely puppeteering the wearer's body without direction from their mind. And yet, Raine's mind seems unaffected, and it's simply her arm moving on its own. This, I think, has to be significant in some way.

Are the collars at the legacy estate simply a different model? On the surface there doesn't seem any reason why that couldn't be the case, but on further reflection if that's the case it seems backwards. If there are different models of collar, the legacy estate ought to have the best, most sophisticated and effective type - and yet, the ones on Eric's ship are the subtle ones that warp the wearer's mind into perfect obedience, while the ones at the legacy estate are a crude brute force variety that merely puppets their bodies while not affecting their minds at all? It doesn't fit. Or, perhaps, does it have to do with Rose's line about how the collars only affect keidran - what does that mean for a hybrid? Right now, only Raine's arms and legs are keidran - is that why the collar can make her arm move, but because her body and head (and hence, brain?) are human it isn't affecting her mind?
That could be explained away by Eric being a professional slave trader and Trace not being home for probably years and having a strong hatred of Keidran. Eric would certainly have the newest model of the tools of his trade on his ship, while Trace could get by with older ones as he didn't use them much at home (because he doesn't have any Keidran there beyond Rose), and hasn't been there in awhile to boot. Why would Rose order new ones?

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Re: Comic for June 9, 2019: Relearning Control

#8 Post by Esn »

Hey, a spelling/grammar mistake in the 3rd panel: "mind of it's own" should be "mind of its own" (a simple way to remember: "it's" is always short for either "it is" or "it has", as in "it's been years"="it has been years", but you can only use it for "it has" when it can't be misinterpreted as "it is". So you can't use it for a sentence like "it has a high temperature" because "it's a high temperature" would by default be "it is a high temperature")

Also, I have a bad premonition that the crisis at the end of this chapter will have Brahn controlling Raine through a slave collar and her still not having learned to resist it at all.

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Re: Comic for June 9, 2019: Relearning Control

#9 Post by AndreRhineDavis »

steelabjur wrote: Sun Jun 09, 2019 11:33 pm
MuonNeutrino wrote: Sun Jun 09, 2019 7:19 pm
tony1695 wrote: Sun Jun 09, 2019 11:00 amAnd collars seem to... send nerve signals that the wearer can't interfere with?
It seems like - and that's strange, because that's not what they seemed to do previously. Before, they were portrayed as acting to break the wearer's mind and will so that they would *voluntarily* do what they were told, not merely puppeteering the wearer's body without direction from their mind. And yet, Raine's mind seems unaffected, and it's simply her arm moving on its own. This, I think, has to be significant in some way.

Are the collars at the legacy estate simply a different model? On the surface there doesn't seem any reason why that couldn't be the case, but on further reflection if that's the case it seems backwards. If there are different models of collar, the legacy estate ought to have the best, most sophisticated and effective type - and yet, the ones on Eric's ship are the subtle ones that warp the wearer's mind into perfect obedience, while the ones at the legacy estate are a crude brute force variety that merely puppets their bodies while not affecting their minds at all? It doesn't fit. Or, perhaps, does it have to do with Rose's line about how the collars only affect keidran - what does that mean for a hybrid? Right now, only Raine's arms and legs are keidran - is that why the collar can make her arm move, but because her body and head (and hence, brain?) are human it isn't affecting her mind?
That could be explained away by Eric being a professional slave trader and Trace not being home for probably years and having a strong hatred of Keidran. Eric would certainly have the newest model of the tools of his trade on his ship, while Trace could get by with older ones as he didn't use them much at home (because he doesn't have any Keidran there beyond Rose), and hasn't been there in awhile to boot. Why would Rose order new ones?
You could argue that Trace's collars *are* a more sophisticated and effective type than Eric's collars.
It is implied that Eric's collars damage the minds of the Keidran under their control, and over time this damage might be permanent. So yes, they force Keidran into submission, but at the cost of mental health of the Keidran. This is not necessarily a desired effect; sure they're less able to rebel, but they'd also be less able to do perform tasks that require intelligence or thought or planning rather than just pure muscle. And it would probably cause them to lose their sanity over time and became useless as slaves.
[Possible retcon idea: "feral" Keidran are actually Keidran who have been under the slave collar so long that their minds couldn't handle it anymore and all their higher intelligence and consciousness just crumpled, leaving them like animals].
Whereas Trace's collars have a far more subtle effect. They are able to control the slave like a puppet, without damaging the mind of the slave. I don't think it's merely "sending nerve signals", I think Raine's brain has to interpret Rose's command of "don't lift your arm" and put that into effect, but it's at a far more subconscious level. Rather than Raine's conscious mind being suppressed, her conscious mind is untouched and hence able to try and fight the command, but her mind is enforcing it at some subconscious level.

So yeah, I think Trace's collars are the more sophisticated ones. They're able to control slaves and keep in them line without actually doing mental damage to the slaves, which allows the slaves to keep doing higher-level more intelligent tasks, and keeps them mentally fit for longer. Whereas it's Eric's collars that take the more "crude / brute force" approach, they just completely force the slave's mind into submission, which would leave them unable to think clearly and unable to do higher-level more intelligent tasks, and eventually "break" the slave, making them useless to humans.
Esn wrote: Mon Jun 10, 2019 12:33 am Hey, a spelling/grammar mistake in the 3rd panel: "mind of it's own" should be "mind of its own" (a simple way to remember: "it's" is always short for either "it is" or "it has", as in "it's been years"="it has been years", but you can only use it for "it has" when it can't be misinterpreted as "it is". So you can't use it for a sentence like "it has a high temperature" because "it's a high temperature" would by default be "it is a high temperature")

Also, I have a bad premonition that the crisis at the end of this chapter will have Brahn controlling Raine through a slave collar and her still not having learned to resist it at all.
Interesting fact: writing "it's" to mean "belonging to it" was actually pretty standard a few hundred years ago, it only became nonstandard in the 19th century.
Also, the rule isn't that you can't write "it's" for "it has" when it could be misinterpreted, rather it's that "it's" can only stand for "it has" when "has" is being used as an auxiliary verb, and not a lexical verb.
In other words, you can only write "it's" or "he's" or "I've" etc for "it has" or "he has" or "I have" when the "have" is used as a grammatical particle to express the perfect aspect (e.g. "I have eaten", "it has been a long time"), but NOT when "have" is being used as a normal verb to mean "to possess" (e.g. "I have 3 dogs").

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Re: Comic for June 9, 2019: Relearning Control

#10 Post by Josh.C »

AndreRhineDavis wrote: Mon Jun 10, 2019 3:04 am
steelabjur wrote: Sun Jun 09, 2019 11:33 pm
MuonNeutrino wrote: Sun Jun 09, 2019 7:19 pm
tony1695 wrote: Sun Jun 09, 2019 11:00 amAnd collars seem to... send nerve signals that the wearer can't interfere with?
It seems like - and that's strange, because that's not what they seemed to do previously. Before, they were portrayed as acting to break the wearer's mind and will so that they would *voluntarily* do what they were told, not merely puppeteering the wearer's body without direction from their mind. And yet, Raine's mind seems unaffected, and it's simply her arm moving on its own. This, I think, has to be significant in some way.

Are the collars at the legacy estate simply a different model? On the surface there doesn't seem any reason why that couldn't be the case, but on further reflection if that's the case it seems backwards. If there are different models of collar, the legacy estate ought to have the best, most sophisticated and effective type - and yet, the ones on Eric's ship are the subtle ones that warp the wearer's mind into perfect obedience, while the ones at the legacy estate are a crude brute force variety that merely puppets their bodies while not affecting their minds at all? It doesn't fit. Or, perhaps, does it have to do with Rose's line about how the collars only affect keidran - what does that mean for a hybrid? Right now, only Raine's arms and legs are keidran - is that why the collar can make her arm move, but because her body and head (and hence, brain?) are human it isn't affecting her mind?
That could be explained away by Eric being a professional slave trader and Trace not being home for probably years and having a strong hatred of Keidran. Eric would certainly have the newest model of the tools of his trade on his ship, while Trace could get by with older ones as he didn't use them much at home (because he doesn't have any Keidran there beyond Rose), and hasn't been there in awhile to boot. Why would Rose order new ones?
You could argue that Trace's collars *are* a more sophisticated and effective type than Eric's collars.
It is implied that Eric's collars damage the minds of the Keidran under their control, and over time this damage might be permanent. So yes, they force Keidran into submission, but at the cost of mental health of the Keidran. This is not necessarily a desired effect; sure they're less able to rebel, but they'd also be less able to do perform tasks that require intelligence or thought or planning rather than just pure muscle. And it would probably cause them to lose their sanity over time and became useless as slaves.
[Possible retcon idea: "feral" Keidran are actually Keidran who have been under the slave collar so long that their minds couldn't handle it anymore and all their higher intelligence and consciousness just crumpled, leaving them like animals].
Whereas Trace's collars have a far more subtle effect. They are able to control the slave like a puppet, without damaging the mind of the slave. I don't think it's merely "sending nerve signals", I think Raine's brain has to interpret Rose's command of "don't lift your arm" and put that into effect, but it's at a far more subconscious level. Rather than Raine's conscious mind being suppressed, her conscious mind is untouched and hence able to try and fight the command, but her mind is enforcing it at some subconscious level.

So yeah, I think Trace's collars are the more sophisticated ones. They're able to control slaves and keep in them line without actually doing mental damage to the slaves, which allows the slaves to keep doing higher-level more intelligent tasks, and keeps them mentally fit for longer. Whereas it's Eric's collars that take the more "crude / brute force" approach, they just completely force the slave's mind into submission, which would leave them unable to think clearly and unable to do higher-level more intelligent tasks, and eventually "break" the slave, making them useless to humans.
Or it could simply be explained away as it depends on the state of mind of the wearer of the collar.

Both Eric's slaves had their colors on for a number of years. So they grow around it as long as they didn't rebel from the colors. But when Eric put an active collar back on, he was rebelling. So a good part of his mind was repressed.

For Raine, she's very trusting of Rose and Rose is giving her quite a bit of freedom in her choices. So the collar is doing too much yet.

I must admit, I have some concerns with this approach. It could lead to no results. Or even worst, make things worst. It seems like Raine's body is trying to find a middle ground in her default form. Forcing this like this might only exacerbate the problem. She didn't seem to have these problems at the hot spring. What changed?

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Re: Comic for June 9, 2019: Relearning Control

#11 Post by BadJoke »

Well at least it seems she won't go too hard on her.
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Rose's Agenda(?)

#12 Post by JDEzekude »

MuonNeutrino wrote: Sun Jun 09, 2019 7:19 pm"Everyone has an agenda", eh Rose? What's yours, then?
Sick burn, sir. =P If I were her, my agenda would be revenge. However, unlike many who would blow their revenge out of proportion (e.g. indiscriminate malice), I'd carry out mine man-to-man without getting anyone else involved.

Having said that, I have a feeling that her grudge against Euchre, who once left her for dead, will not involve Raine. I don't think she'd forgive herself if she were to use Raine to get back at him.
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Re: Comic for June 9, 2019: Relearning Control

#13 Post by Brith0s »

Warrl wrote: Sun Jun 09, 2019 8:55 pm That's more or less what I would go with - that and possibly the fact that Raine's baseline state is human.
Actually Raine needs magical artifacts to keep her in human form, while her "relaxed" state is more often than not keidran.

We do not have IMHO enough information on Euchre or Rose ancestry to rule out they are hybrids as well.

So I wouldn't consider a given Raine's base form as human.

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Re: Comic for June 9, 2019: Relearning Control

#14 Post by Esn »

AndreRhineDavis wrote: Mon Jun 10, 2019 3:04 amIn other words, you can only write "it's" or "he's" or "I've" etc for "it has" or "he has" or "I have" when the "have" is used as a grammatical particle to express the perfect aspect (e.g. "I have eaten", "it has been a long time"), but NOT when "have" is being used as a normal verb to mean "to possess" (e.g. "I have 3 dogs").
My explanation is just as true as yours. Yours was what I wrote originally, then I thought about it, and realized that the REASON that rule came into being in the first place among English-speakers is probably because if it were used to shorten "has" in a sentence in which the possessive meaning is used, it would be impossible to tell whether "has" or "is" was meant.

So I just thought it would be easier to remember this way - it gives a common-sense reason for the rule, rather than just something arbitrary.

It also explains why the sentence "I've a headache" is perfectly fine in some places, especially in the UK. The meaning can't be confused with anything else. (but we weren't talking about contractions in general, only "it's", 'cause that's the one that people confuse)

Speaking of, Tom still hasn't corrected it...

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Re: Comic for June 9, 2019: Relearning Control

#15 Post by Technic[Bot] »

MuonNeutrino wrote: Sun Jun 09, 2019 7:19 pm It seems like - and that's strange, because that's not what they seemed to do previously. Before, they were portrayed as acting to break the wearer's mind and will so that they would *voluntarily* do what they were told, not merely puppeteering the wearer's body without direction from their mind. And yet, Raine's mind seems unaffected, and it's simply her arm moving on its own. This, I think, has to be significant in some way.

Are the collars at the legacy estate simply a different model? On the surface there doesn't seem any reason why that couldn't be the case, but on further reflection if that's the case it seems backwards. If there are different models of collar, the legacy estate ought to have the best, most sophisticated and effective type - and yet, the ones on Eric's ship are the subtle ones that warp the wearer's mind into perfect obedience, while the ones at the legacy estate are a crude brute force variety that merely puppets their bodies while not affecting their minds at all? It doesn't fit. Or, perhaps, does it have to do with Rose's line about how the collars only affect keidran - what does that mean for a hybrid? Right now, only Raine's arms and legs are keidran - is that why the collar can make her arm move, but because her body and head (and hence, brain?) are human it isn't affecting her mind?

Either way, I still think there's something a bit weird going on here. Rose should know what the collars do. We have seen no indication previously that it's possible to resist them - in fact, they've been presented as terrifying free-will destroying mind control devices. When all we had seen of this comic after Tom drew it last week was the art, before the dialog was added, I had been thinking that perhaps Eclipse was right in his comment from a couple comics ago -- that the point of the collar was not *actually* to help Raine with her ability, but to show Raine that the 'keidran-only' collar still affected her and therefore force her to confront her skewed mindset and admit that her wolf heritage really is part of her rather than being some sort of 'other'. But the dialog for this page goes in another direction, and one that honestly still doesn't make sense to me. Why does Rose think that Raine would be able to resist the collar? "Everyone has an agenda", eh Rose? What's yours, then?
I imagine there are different models for every need. A simple mind control device will be good if all you need is a ship-hand but probably won't work if you need your slave to do your accounting. In any case I also do not understand how is this supposed to help Raine either. As you point out if it was a way for her to realize that the "wolf" is a part of her, no matter her outer form, then it makes sense. But that does not seems to be Rose's idea.
Returning to Mr Shockwave's apt analogy, Raine needs to learn how to drive a manual transmission but has never used but an automatic car. So to teach her Rose decides to dump her in the middle of a lake on an outboard motor board, Yes she will eventually learn how to operate the boat but I am not sure how that will help her drive stick.
Then in the last page Rose said that she did not expected Raine to actually wear the collar that there are far more "safe" alternatives. So I am under the impression Rose was only messing with her niece and now that she is wearing the collar she is just winging it... You know for fun!
AndreRhineDavis wrote: Mon Jun 10, 2019 3:04 am You could argue that Trace's collars *are* a more sophisticated and effective type than Eric's collars.
It is implied that Eric's collars damage the minds of the Keidran under their control, and over time this damage might be permanent. So yes, they force Keidran into submission, but at the cost of mental health of the Keidran. This is not necessarily a desired effect; sure they're less able to rebel, but they'd also be less able to do perform tasks that require intelligence or thought or planning rather than just pure muscle. And it would probably cause them to lose their sanity over time and became useless as slaves.
[Possible retcon idea: "feral" Keidran are actually Keidran who have been under the slave collar so long that their minds couldn't handle it anymore and all their higher intelligence and consciousness just crumpled, leaving them like animals].
Whereas Trace's collars have a far more subtle effect. They are able to control the slave like a puppet, without damaging the mind of the slave. I don't think it's merely "sending nerve signals", I think Raine's brain has to interpret Rose's command of "don't lift your arm" and put that into effect, but it's at a far more subconscious level. Rather than Raine's conscious mind being suppressed, her conscious mind is untouched and hence able to try and fight the command, but her mind is enforcing it at some subconscious level.

So yeah, I think Trace's collars are the more sophisticated ones. They're able to control slaves and keep in them line without actually doing mental damage to the slaves, which allows the slaves to keep doing higher-level more intelligent tasks, and keeps them mentally fit for longer. Whereas it's Eric's collars that take the more "crude / brute force" approach, they just completely force the slave's mind into submission, which would leave them unable to think clearly and unable to do higher-level more intelligent tasks, and eventually "break" the slave, making them useless to humans.
I think Trace's collars would be the most sophisticated to the point they are custom made and have different "settings":
Need your Keidran to stock your vault but do not want him to break in afterwards? Set it to zombie mode and he won't be able to remember anything. Now if you need her to greet all your guest and make sure there are no party crashers, then you can turn off her legs, so she won't abandon her post. If you simply wan't to keep them inside your property of prevent them from escaping just geo-fence them, every time they go outside the delimited perimeter his body will go limp and so on ans so forth...
I imagine Rose set Raine's collar to: "Simply obey commands" and not to "BREAK MIND AND FREE WILL". This type of colars are complicated to make and expensive so would not make much sense for a slave-trader, someone in it for the profit, to have for every slave he owns.
Also very interesting retcon idea.
Brith0s wrote: Mon Jun 10, 2019 7:30 pm
Warrl wrote: Sun Jun 09, 2019 8:55 pm That's more or less what I would go with - that and possibly the fact that Raine's baseline state is human.
Actually Raine needs magical artifacts to keep her in human form, while her "relaxed" state is more often than not keidran.

We do not have IMHO enough information on Euchre or Rose ancestry to rule out they are hybrids as well.

So I wouldn't consider a given Raine's base form as human.
I would argue the her base form is neither and both. She seems to change under external stressors, such as life or death situations, if her magic suppression is not turned on. Just like some people get the hiccups when stressed. And stays in a form until something makes her change.
In the case of hybridization according to what we can piece together of whatever we know of the lore. Until very recently, around a couple chapters, hybridization was impossible: The mask, resident demigods, forbid it because it messed their scoring system for some reason. One of the aforementioned mask decided to cheat and lift all restrictions on Keidran/human hybrids to prevent the keidran defeat and total annihilation on the coming war.
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